Thursday, January 30, 2014

Writing 1 Class Notes -- Week 3 (January 30)

Greetings!
It was good to see everyone today after last week's cancelled classes.  With the poor driving weather, I'm also glad to see that we were all safe.
Our Quick Write for today centered on Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) whose birthday was today in 1882.  He was an avid stamp collector (a philatelist), and I had the students write about a collection they had or one that they knew of.  It turns out that a number of us had rock collections -- especially of the common backyard variety kind.
Since we didn't have class last week and therefore didn't get a chance to go over the worksheets that I e-mailed out, we spent a significant amount of time on Grammar, talking about pronouns today.  I made a chart on the board to explain nominative and objective cases along with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person pronouns.  This helped us as we worked through some of the worksheets.  We went over some of the exercises on the worksheets assigned for next week.
Next on our agenda was a brief discussion of our next paper, the Narrative Essay. Because we have new students this semester, I explained the 3-step process for putting together an essay:  pre-writing, the rough draft, and the final draft.  We also reviewed what a thesis statement was (Topic/Subject + Opinion/Stand = Thesis Statement)  These Narrative Essays are not just stories, but they are to be stories "with a purpose"  In other words, they need to have a thesis that gives the paper direction and focus.
Finally, we discussed our first book for this term, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Written at the tale end of the Victorian era, the language is a bit dryer than our modern diction.  Their mode of speech may feel more stilted and formal, but it is a fairly accurate depiction of the language of the time.  It's a fascinating story with multiple layers of themes.
Assignments for Next Week:
-- Read Chapters 5 & 6 from Jekyll/Hyde
-- Answer 2 questions for each chapter
-- Finish Pronouns Worksheets 4-4 and 4-5
This week's blog posts
Class Notes

Have a great weekend and stay warm!
Mrs. Prichard

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